


How to Share a Bed Without Killing Each Other: a Love Story

by electricshoebox



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dorian absolutely and most certainly not being completely in love, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-03 09:39:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4096114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricshoebox/pseuds/electricshoebox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleeping together is all well and good (very, very good) but <i>sleeping</i> together is... well, another beast entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of Course He Snores

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dinojay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinojay/gifts).



> So quite a while back, the illustrious artist [dinojay](http://dinojay.tumblr.com) asked for fic of Dorian and Bull having a hard time figuring out how to actually sleep together, and I have finally managed to deliver. This will be just a few chapters. Despite this first one being short, parts of it got long that I figured it would be less jumbled to just split it up. Many thanks to [Iambic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic), [AislinCade](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AislinCade), and [serenityfails](http://serenity-fails.tumblr.com) for beta-reading and encouraging. I hope you enjoy it!

The first time Dorian decides to spend what’s left of the night in the Iron Bull’s bed, he swears he will never do it again. He makes this solemn and resolute vow with a pillow shoved over his ears and a groan of frustration into the mattress. Bull is sprawled on his back next to Dorian, mouth hanging open, an unholy sound thundering out of it--something between wood being sanded and the old bullfrog that decided to haunt the camp in the Fallow Mire a few weeks ago. (Dorian spent most of _that_ wretched night fantasizing about ripping open the tent flap and sending the frog to join the corpses in the water with a lightning bolt, or perhaps freezing it to the muddy shore with an ice spell. Or perhaps fire. He heard tell some cultures favored frog legs as a delicacy. They certainly couldn’t be worse than the standard mushy stew he came to expect in the Inquisition camps, and they say revenge is sweet.)

That he _isn’t_ having the same fantasies about the rumbling oaf next to him really ought to qualify him for a stanza in the Chant of Light. At least a hymn extolling his virtues (and his beauty), surely. 

Dorian probably should have seen this coming, honestly, after dozens of journeys on the road together. But if ever he heard the raucous noise barrelling out into the room now in camp, he can’t recall it. Perhaps the tents muffled it far better than his pillow seems to be doing, or perhaps the exhaustion of travel had him sleeping too deeply to care. Perhaps it’s the mountain air, as Bull seems utterly content to let it funnel in through the hole in his ceiling. (Barbarian.)

Dorian could leave, of course. He considers it. He doubts the Bull would hear the door over all that ruckus, and it’s still dark enough that Dorian might manage a few decent hours of sleep yet. It would be simple enough to just slide his feet over the side, reach for the pile of clothing in the corner, and slip out into the hall.

But it had been his idea. His ridiculous, ill-considered, transparently besotted idea. Well, perhaps not ill-considered. Maker knew the thought had flitted through his head often as he’d sat on the edge of Bull’s bed--thoroughly well-fucked, if he was honest--and stared at the boots he was supposed to be pulling on. What if he just… left them on the floor this time? What if he made some excuse, mumbled something about the cold walk back to his room, something about being too tipsy to make it on his own? What if he just fell asleep here, before he could think too hard about why he wanted to? Why he really, _really_ wanted to? The bed was warm. The _Bull_ was warm. Did it matter that that eye of Bull’s could see straight through any excuse Dorian might fumble for? 

Well, _did_ it? 

Dorian hasn’t been counting the weeks, but he’s been coming here long enough that he knows where the furniture is in the dark, knows how to lock the door without looking, knows which drawer Bull keeps his rope in and which drawer he keeps his spare eyepatch in. He’s been coming here long enough that he knows they passed “fling” and “dalliance” and “just a bit of fun” a long time ago, and they’re sitting firmly in territory Dorian doesn’t have a name for. Not a name he’s ready to use, anyway. Not a name he’s sure Bull wants to use. He hasn’t asked, and Bull hasn’t offered, and Dorian sleeps in his own bed at night. And that’s fine. Well, it _was_ fine. He should’ve let it stay fine, just there, just let it be. 

Now he’s going to have to explain why he left in the middle of the night after…well. After a _very_ good evening. 

“Would it be all right if I…” he’d started, hesitated, started again. “That is, you’ve rather fucked the will to move right out of me.” That was the excuse he finally settled on, out of all of them. A good choice, after all--Bull had laughed gently, and the smile reached all the way to his eye. 

And Dorian is a weak, weak man. 

Of course, that had all been very good until Bull started in on the snoring. It feels like an hour must have passed, and Bull, ever the determined man that he is, shows no signs of taking pity on Dorian’s exhaustion and ceasing his... _nasal cacophony_. 

Until he snorts suddenly, shifting a little, and for a moment his breathing quiets. Dorian slowly lifts the pillow from his ears. _Finally._ Sighing, he curls into a more comfortable position and puts the pillow back beneath his head. He feels himself toeing the edge of sleep when a rumbling snore jolts him awake again. It takes every ounce of Dorian’s strength not to smack Bull’s face with his pillow.

To make matters decidedly worse, once Dorian finally does tumble into an uneasy sleep, he’s shaken back out of it what feels like minutes later by the blanket jerking away from his hips. It’s still dark, but barely--he can see the first signs of light in the room. Dorian huffs and pushes himself up enough to look over at Bull, who is settling the blanket over his waist.

“You snore _and_ you’re a blanket thief?” Dorian says, half whisper and half sleep-roughened growl. He jumps when Bull actually answers.

“ _You’re_ the blanket thief,” Bull says without opening his eye. “I woke up freezing because you dragged the whole damn thing away.”

“Maybe if you bothered to get the holes in your roof fixed, I wouldn’t have to,” Dorian says, snatching a corner of the blanket and tugging. 

“You could’ve just come closer if you were cold,” says Bull. “You know I’ll warm you up.” 

It registers somewhere beneath Dorian’s annoyance that Bull doesn’t say, “You could just leave,” and he files that away to fret over at some future inconvenient time, likely when he’s trying to make headway on his research. For now he grumbles, “After the noise you were making? I hate to be the one to tell you, but it falls short of attractive.” 

Bull chuckles and frees a little more of the blanket from under his hip. “Go to sleep, Dorian.”

“Easy for you to say,” Dorian mutters back. Blessedly, though, he falls asleep first this time. 

_Never again_ , he thinks as he drifts off.


	2. Big Enough for Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian Pavus is a man onto which the Maker delights to pour all his malice. In other words, Dorian is forced to share a tent with the Bull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for all your comments and encouragement on the first chapter! This has been fun to write.

There are few religious things Dorian knows without a single doubt to be true, but chief among them is this: the Maker is cruel. The Maker is a cruel and vicious deity that wishes mankind, and one Dorian Pavus in particular, to suffer. He knows this with a sweeping certainty that settles like a chill in his bones (or perhaps that’s just the rain slinking under his leathers) as he watches the wind sweep his tent out into the sea. He will swear until his dying day that he hears divine laughter in his ears (that sounds suspiciously like Bull’s) as he scampers fruitlessly after it across the beach, stopping short as the surf licks at his boots. 

The second thing Dorian knows to be true is that the Storm Coast is a cursed land that will one day sink into the sea like his tent has, if he has anything to say about it.

The only saving grace to this wretched day is that Dorian had the forethought to avoid makeup that morning. Though black lines bleeding down his face would certainly have conveyed his misery well, he is grateful (though not to the Maker, wicked bastard) that some measure of his dignity remains in tact. If he’s going to stand slack-jawed and soaked through while watching his only shelter swallowed by the waves, at least he’s going to look beautiful while doing it. 

The Bull is still laughing when he reaches Dorian. He pats Dorian’s shoulder, sending water droplets flying up from Dorian’s cloak to splash his neck. Dorian scowls up at him.

“Come on,” the Bull says with a smile, “Mine’s big enough for two.” 

His horns scatter the raindrops over his chest in a way that is absolutely not attractive and certainly not distracting enough to be comforting. Dorian maintains his scowl to convey this, even as he lets Bull lead him back to camp by the shoulder. Really, he ought to be blaming the Inquisitor for thinking they could tromp right past the beachside Inquisition camp and make it as far as the next one before the rain started (it _is_ called the Storm Coast for a reason), forcing them to pull the emergency tents from their packs in the first place.

After a meager supper under the shelter of a boulder, Dorian discovers Bull’s tent is not, in fact, big enough for two. Even sized up to account for Bull’s... _Bull_ ness, it’s barely enough for him to turn his head without snagging his horns on the tent flap. Dorian wrinkles his nose as he crawls in. Bull’s already sprawled across his bedroll and snoring lightly, his arm thrown out part way across Dorian’s. Dorian sighs.

“This is not going to work,” Dorian says. Bull rouses from his dozing, blinking at Dorian in the dim light filtering in from the tent flap.

“Oh, come here,” Bull says, lifting the arm stretched over Dorian’s blanket. “You’ve never complained about cuddling before.”

It’s a lie--Dorian complains loudly and often about Bull’s fondness for manhandling and squeezing him--but it’s a charitable one, and Dorian lets it pass with another sigh. He goes to leave his boots to dry with his cloak and outer robe by the fire, then crawls back in to sit on his bedroll. 

“You’re going to sleep like that?” Bull says, eyeing Dorian’s leathers. “You’re still all wet.” 

“Everything I have is all wet. And I’m not about to risk sleeping naked next to you with Sera in the next tent,” Dorian says.

“You’re gonna get me all wet, too,” says Bull. 

Dorian splutters past the obvious jokes, but even in the dim of the tent he can see Bull smirking. He rolls his eyes at him and says, “Then stay on your side.” 

“Fine, you get sick because you slept the night covered in rain water, don’t come crying to me.” 

Bull bends his arm out of Dorian’s way, shifting where he lays on his stomach with a small pillow propping his head up enough to lean his horns comfortably. Dorian tugs his blanket up to his chin and curls onto his side. 

But the leather clings, making a noise every time Dorian shifts and chafing his skin. His hair, still damp and beginning to curl at odd angles as it dries, presses rough and coarse against the back of his neck. He turns over, scraping his hair back, then turns back again, lifting his arm and resettling it, trying to find a position where the leather presses without pinching. 

As he turns back around yet again, Bull lets out a grumble. 

“Just take the damn thing off, Dorian,” he says. “Or neither of us is going to sleep.” 

“You just want me naked,” Dorian mutters half-heartedly, a jab at Bull for being right, blast him.

“I always want you naked,” Bull says. “But right now, I’d rather get some sleep, and I want your clothes to shut the fuck up so I can do it.” 

Dorian sits up with a huff. Half the reason for his reluctance is the sheer number of buckles and ties, and the time it takes to undo them all, but he’ll be damned before he admits that aloud, especially to Bull. His clothes--even his armor--are a bright spot in the otherwise sizeable fashion void that is the Inquisition. That they take a bit of time and skill to put on and take back off is a small price to pay.

He jumps when he feels Bull’s fingers plucking at a buckle on his side. He glares.

“I told you, don’t get any ideas,” Dorian says.

“I’m just trying to help. You’re the one who keeps thinking of sex,” Bull smirks, sitting up and shifting around to reach a buckle at Dorian’s back. “I’m also starting to think I’m better at getting you out of this thing than you are.”

“Absurd,” Dorian says, because he knows it stands a good chance of being true.

Between the two of them they manage to free Dorian from his fashionable leather prison, and he removes his underclothes and sets the pile outside the tent. He maneuvers himself back under his blanket with a mumbled “thank you” that Bull just chuckles at. 

“Go to sleep, or I’ll beat you to it and start snoring,” he says as he settles on his back. This is an entirely unfair threat to make when Dorian is lying under a damp blanket and his hair is still scratching the back of his neck, but it suddenly feels as if it would take entirely too much energy to tell the Bull that. Dorian pulls the blanket higher and buries his face in his pillow.

He wakes a few hours later to find himself being gently pushed forward on his bedroll. He turns, jerking away from the hand depositing him there. 

“What are you--” 

“I don’t mind cuddling but not with your elbow digging into my side like that,” Bull mumbles, turning onto his back again.

“Cuddling? What in the world are you talking about?” Dorian says. “I was finally asleep--” 

“You kept rolling further into me, which was fine until you elbowed me in the ribs,” says Bull. 

“I did no such thing.”

Bull sighs. “Whatever. Just go back to sleep.” 

“More than likely you deserved it, anyway, snoring like that.” 

“Oh, just for that,” Bull swings around, rolling until he lays half on top of Dorian, horns turned just enough to avoid smashing Dorian’s nose, his weight sinking heavily onto Dorian’s shoulder.

Dorian swats him with the arm Bull hasn’t managed to pin. “Unhand me, you lummox.” 

“Nope, I’m comfortable now,” Bull says, curling his arm around Dorian’s side. 

“Now I know how bread dough feels under a rolling pin,” Dorian grumbles. “This was a terrible idea.” 

“Well, you wanna go snuggle up with Sera, be my guest. She kicks in her sleep, though.” 

“You’ve shared a tent with her?” Dorian stops trying to shift his arm to peer over at Bull. 

Bull grunts. “Dust storm kicked through the Oasis that time the Boss took us to the shard temple. Swept some of the tents into the canyon and buried them. None of us wanted to go dig ‘em out in the middle of the night.”

“Was this the same trip where Adaar fell off the ladder on top of a rage demon?”

Bull’s laugh shakes both of them. “Yeah, scorched his ass right through his leathers. Couldn’t sit right for a week.”

Dorian snorts. He’d seen the burned breeches Adaar carried sheepishly down to the Undercroft for repair. “Of course, I miss all the fun and get taken to all the wet and frozen places demanding the Inquisitor’s attention.”

“You’re resourceful. I’m sure you’d find something to complain about in the dry and hot places, too,” says Bull.

Dorian’s glare is lost in the dark and the bend of Bull’s head, so he swats Bull’s arm again instead. Bull chuckles. 

“At any rate, you’ve had your fun,” Dorian says, “Get off of me.”

“Fiesty,” Bull rumbles into Dorian’s ear.

“Fiesty will rapidly become _fiery_ if you do not move,” Dorian says, pushing at Bull’s arm until Bull relents with another laugh and rolls onto his back. Dorian tucks himself as close to the other side of the tent as he can manage. 

Dorian decides later that it must be by the unfair divine decree of the Maker’s ill humor that he wakes in the early morning curled once again into Bull’s side anyway. Bull’s arm curls around Dorian’s back, and Dorian’s neck is stiff where his head rests at Bull’s shoulder. The Maker is unfathomably and _unceasingly_ cruel. Dorian slips out before Bull can wake to find him like that and smile at him. Maker’s _balls_.


	3. Perchance to Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian has a nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes a slightly more serious tone than the last two, and there's some mention of blood, but no violence and nothing graphic. I hope I was able to get the right balance of mood. Thanks to everyone who's been reading.

Dorian wakes alone in his room, and blinks up for several moments at the ceiling. It’s still dark, and the room is cool -- he slept long enough for the hearth fire to burn to cinders, then, and the mountain air to creep in through the stone. He looks around the room, uncertain what woke him. Moonlight spills over the window ledge across from the bed and onto his desk, lighting a pile of papers an unnatural blue. He sees the embers in the hearth, glowing faintly. He can smell them, too, strangely. A faint scent of ash and smoke, and… something else. Something… almost metallic, but a little heavy, something like… meat? 

A shadow passes in front of the window, and Dorian’s heart stops. The footsteps are quiet but audible, cloth rustling with each one (someone unused to moving silently, then) and slowly nearing the edge of the bed. Dorian wills his breathing steady, pursing his lips together hard. Beneath the blanket, he curls his fingers. The shadow draws close enough to see, and even with his heartbeat pounding in his ears, Dorian can hear shaky breathing that is not his. He wills his fingers steady, his arms slowly tensing as he waits. Once the figure is close enough to touch, Dorian whips the sheets back and thrusts a fistful of fire into his attacker’s face. Then he stops, gasping, as he sees the wide eyes of his father in the light of the flames. Shadows twist into the wrinkles at his eyes as the fire flickers. His hands--one raised toward Dorian, the other clutching a gnarled staff--are soaked with blood.

“Father?” Dorian chokes out. The flames dart back and forth as his hand shakes.

“Dorian,” Halward says, daring another step forward. Dorian shrinks back.

Halward reaches for him again, his hand dripping onto Dorian’s bedsheets. “Please understand…” 

Dorian screams. And wakes.

He’s still screaming as his eyes fly open. The sheets are damp with sweat and tangled around his legs, and he kicks free of them as he sits up. This isn’t his bed.

“Dorian? Dorian, what the hell is wrong?” 

Dorian glances over his shoulders in time to see a large hand reaching for him. He yells, scrambling back so fast he tumbles out of bed, crashing across the floor.

“Dorian!”

Fumbling his way to his feet, Dorian calls fire to his fingers, and a sphere of heat flares to life in his palm, far brighter and stronger than the magic of his dream. But in the light, he sees only the Bull. on his feet on the other side of the bed, hands raised a little. 

“Easy, Dorian,” Bull says, “Easy. It’s just me.”

Dorian stares at him through the bend of the flames. Bull’s shadow dances against the window behind him, horns spread like beacons. Dorian breathes out. With a shaky twirl of his fingers, the flames vanish, plunging the room back into darkness. One, two steps back presses Dorian against Bull’s armoire. The wood is solid and cool against his bare shoulders. He closes his eyes and sinks slowly to the floor, swiping a hand through his sweaty hair. He pants into the silence until his lungs no longer burn. He isn’t in his room. He’s in Bull’s room, where he hadn’t meant to fall asleep. He just needed to rest his eyes a moment after… well, after a solid hour of the Bull thoroughly exhausting him. That’s a much better thought, and he clings to it as his heart calms.

Minutes pass before Bull whispers, “You with me, big guy?” 

Dorian’s eyes drift up to the shadow of horns against the window. Bull hasn’t moved except to lower his hands, standing still near the edge of the bed. There’s a magnitude to the gesture that is dizzying, and Dorian closes his eyes, but the words to thank Bull for it stick in his throat. 

“I’m all right,” he says instead. He squints, trying to make out Bull’s face in the dark. “I’m… sorry for waking you like that.” 

“Eh,” Bull waves a hand. “Hardly the most exciting wake up call I’ve ever had. I ever tell you about the time the Chargers and I nearly got trampled by a druffalo stampede?” 

Dorian huffs out the closest thing he can manage to a laugh. “Shockingly, I believe that’s one tale I haven’t heard at least twice yet.”

“Bowled right through our camp, early morning. Sent Rocky scampering bare ass naked down a hill and tumbling into a bush. Whined about the scratches on his dick for a week.” 

Dorian can hear the smirk in Bull’s voice, and there’s something incredibly soothing about that. His hands stop shaking. He chuckles as he looks down at them, but then he sees the vision of his father’s hands again--red, dripping, _reaching_ \--and he frowns, looking away.

“How you doing?” Bull asks, softer now. 

Dorian sighs. “I’m… I’ll be fine.” 

Bull nods. He doesn’t ask, and Dorian can’t find the words to thank him for that, either. He watches Bull turn slowly to the nightstand and pick up the cup resting there. 

“Mind some company over there?” Bull asks. It sounds as casual as always, but he makes no move to round the bed.

“All right,” Dorian says, and only then does Bull take a step. 

He slides down next to Dorian with a groan, rubbing at his knee with his free hand. He settles close, but not touching, and swings the cup into Dorian’s reach.

“Drink some water.”

Dorian looks at Bull, his chest tightening. He can see his face now, a little, see the knotted scar usually hidden under the eyepatch, and the gentle hint of a smile on his lips. Dorian takes the cup and drinks deeply.

“Thank you,” he says, finally, and when he hands the cup back to Bull, he makes certain their fingers brush together. Bull’s smile widens, and Dorian knows he understands. Bull sets the cup on the floor and rests a hand on Dorian’s thigh. 

“I dreamt of my father,” Dorian says, laying a hand on top of Bull’s. “I woke to find him in my room here, in Skyhold.” 

Bull squeezes his thigh. Dorian swallows.

“He came to my bed in the dark. His hands were covered in blood. He begged me to understand.”

Bull swipes his thumb along Dorian’s leg, back and forth. “He’d never make it past the guards.”

“I don’t believe he’d actually try,” Dorian says. “If there was any truth to his words in Redcliffe. But the thought of… what he wanted to do, what he planned to do… lingers.” Dorian’s voice sours and he leans his head back against the armoire door. “Qunari are quite fortunate not to dream.”

Bull sighs. “Maybe. We’re not immune to memories, though. I think I can understand.”

Dorian nods. Bull doesn’t elaborate, but Dorian hears a story in the words through the silence that follows. His fingers slip between Bull’s, stroking over the blunted tips of two of them. Dorian shifts a little closer, their shoulders pressing together.

“Sleepy?” Bull asks. 

“Not particularly,” Dorian says. “I… don’t think I can. But you ought to--”

“Nah,” Bull says. “I’m good.” 

“But your knee--”

“It’ll be all right.” 

It doesn’t even surprise Dorian when a strange kind of relief floods his chest, and he doesn't try to keep it from his face. Here he can admit, at least to himself, in this midnight space between sex and morning, that Bull’s warmth against his side is the most comforting thing Dorian can think of. That Bull stays on the floor with him and says nothing of it, or of the ache Dorian knows must be blossoming along his leg, is more than Dorian knows how to repay. 

But he will. Somehow. 

He squeezes Bull’s hand. “All right, you’ve gotten me, I must know. How did you even end up near a druffalo herd?”

Bull laughs. “All right, so, we’d gotten the job from this Fereldan bann...”


	4. Breaking Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a harrowing trip into the Fade, Dorian sees a side of Bull he's never seen before, and they deal with the aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been by far the hardest chapter to write. I tried really hard to stay true to how Bull deals with things while also having the added wrench thrown in of someone else being affected by it, enough that Bull's mask can't come back up completely. I really hope that it works and you all enjoy it. Many thanks to [serenity-fails](http://serenity-fails.tumblr.com) for helping me iron (ha) out the kinks! And thanks to everyone who's been reading, your comments and encouragement are so appreciated!
> 
> Please note that this chapter deals with PTSD. It's on the vaguer side and certainly not graphic, but please take care if that may be uncomfortable to read.

“We’ll stop here for the night. Eat something, all of you, and then get some rest. That’s an order.”

Dorian wants to laugh. He manages to smother it down into a snort, and gets several glares for his trouble anyway. Get some rest, says the Inquisitor. As if they haven’t stood bodily in the land of dreams tonight. As if they haven’t left a man behind there to face his death. As if any of them will ever want to sleep again.

Not that it hadn’t been fascinating. An experience of a lifetime--of a _thousand_ lifetimes. Yet now that he stands on solid...well, sand, and isn’t trying to summon every letter of every book he ever studied on demons and the Fade (and wondering how many of them just might need some rewriting), and now that he isn’t _running for his life_ over rocks with impossible shapes and water that shouldn’t exist, those thousand lifetimes look far less inspiring and far more like the twisted face of the magister-who-would-be-god. The thought of it makes him ill. He trails his spoon through a lukewarm brown stew as he sits before the campfire, and he tries not to think of the multitudes of men back home that would clamor for the chance to repeat this ill-fated adventure, that would stride through the Veil and seek the Black City again. Dorian sets the stew aside.

Beside him, the Bull is tense. He lifts the stew to his lips mechanically, fingers gripping the bowl too hard. Dorian frowns. He watches the Bull swallow, great neck rigid, shoulders high. Dorian’s hands suddenly itch to smooth over those muscles, but he doesn’t know what he’d say to make them relax. He doesn’t know what the Bull would want to hear. 

“You saw spiders?” Bull had said, standing in a ring of slowly dissolving carcasses. He had looked down at them, his face like stone. “Spiders would’ve been a massive improvement from what I saw.” 

Dorian started to explain they were manifestations of fear, but Bull just muttered, “That makes me feel so much better.” He almost asked what the Bull had seen, but had thought better of it when he caught sight of Bull’s scowl. 

Dorian looks away as Bull swallows the last of the stew, and fumbles for the bowl at his feet instead. 

Sleep, unsurprisingly, does not come. Laying on his back in his bedroll, Dorian stares up at the top of his tent. Each time he closes his eyes he sees rocks jutting, floating, dancing in and out of a sickly, strange light. Shadows where demons whisper, where voices sob from memories lost to the shifting corners of a world they were never meant to see. Not like that. He sees darkspawn pouring from the broken earth, a black sea of filth left in their wake, the legacy of the first men to touch the Fade. His stomach wrenches again. 

Sitting up, he swipes a hand over his face. Rest, says the Inquisitor. What a terrible sense of humor. 

Dorian’s already pulled on his robe by the time he stops to think about what he’s doing. He pauses in the middle of tugging his boot up his calf as Bull’s frown comes to mind again. Dorian’s hands fall away from the buckles. The last thing he should be looking to the Bull for right now is comfort. If Bull can get any rest, he should. He wonders if Bull thought of the ancient magisters as well, standing in the Fade, or if not, what it was that filled his thoughts enough to keep him silent at dinner. He never knew he could miss that absurdly loud laughter ringing up from around the campfire quite as much as he did now. Dorian should keep to his own tent.

Still… he bites his lip. He’s never seen the Bull like that. Even on the Storm Coast, standing on a cliff edge with a signal horn dangling from his fingers and a fire roaring on the sea, Bull had managed a weak smile for his boys. Dorian almost wishes the Chargers were here now, wishes Rocky could slap Bull’s shoulder and Krem could come tease him, say something to get the Bull smirking. He wishes--oddly, and perhaps for the only time he ever will--that he could hear them singing one of their tavern songs, something the Bull couldn’t help but raise a flagon to, because anything would sound better than the silence hanging over the camp, than the echo of the Nightmare in his head. And it would make Bull smile. 

Dorian should check on him. He wants to. He probably already should have. But he wouldn’t be surprised if he was just about the last person Bull wanted to see, after all of that. Still Bull had sat with him at dinner, and hadn’t shied away when Dorian handed him the bowl of stew. Maybe he could get him telling stories again, something to distract him. Maybe. It’s not as if either of them are going to sleep, anyway. Dorian reaches for his boot buckles again.

Bull’s tent is next to his, and Dorian shuffles quietly through the sand to peek through the flap. 

“Bull?” he whispers. “I don’t wish to disturb you… Bull?” 

Bull is awake, or at least his eye is open. He sits upright on his bedroll, his legs straight in front of him, his hands fisted into the blanket. He doesn’t look at Dorian.

“Bull?” Dorian says again, pulling the tent flap open. “Are you all right?” 

Bull doesn’t answer, but his hands tighten in the bedroll. Dorian frowns. He steps inside, letting the flap fall closed behind him. 

“Bull,” he says, a little louder.

Bull murmurs something in Qunlat. He turns his head, but in the dim light, Dorian can see Bull’s eye looking past where Dorian stands, almost like he’s staring at something beyond the tent. Dorian ventures closer. He steps slowly to the Bull’s side, then reaches for his shoulder.

“Bull, what’s wrong?”

The moment Dorian’s fingers brush Bull’s skin, Bull jerks and swings his horns back violently. Dorian scrambles to the side. Bull leaps to his feet, panting, his fists lifting in front of him. Dorian stumbles backward, eyes darting to the tent flap, then back to Bull. He raises his hands.

“Bull, it’s Dorian. I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says. “It’s just me.” 

Bull’s fists shake, then slowly uncurl. 

“D...Dorian?” he breathes. His shoulders fall. “Is that… how… how long have you been here?”

“Only a few minutes,” Dorian says, lowering his hands. He keeps his voice steady as he tries to catch his breath. “Are you all right?”

“Are you?” Bull says. He steps toward Dorian, then hesitates. “Did....did I hurt you?”

Dorian straightens immediately, startled. “What? Maker, no! I only caught you off guard, I fear.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, what in the world is wrong?” 

Bull rubs his hands over the back of his neck, looking away. “Just… just give me a minute.” 

Dropping slowly back down onto the bedroll and crossing his legs, the Bull bows his head and threads his fingers together behind it. He takes a deep breath in, then slowly releases it. He takes another, shoulders tensing, then breathes it out again. 

“ _Meraad astaarit_ ,” he whispers. “ _Meraad itwasit. Aban aqun._ ” 

Dorian looks away. “I… shouldn’t have disturbed you. I’ll just--” He starts for the tent flap, pulling it open.

“I’m sorry,” Bull says softly. When Dorian turns, the Bull’s still looking at the ground. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that. It… it hasn’t happened in a long time. All that Fade crap, the demon… I… I’m sorry, Dorian.” 

He has never, in all his acquaintance with him, heard the Bull’s voice sound so small. It feels as wrong as all the wretched shapes of the Fade and all the demons curling beneath them, and it frightens him. 

He should go. He wasn’t meant to see this. His hand tightens on the tent flap. Then, without warning, he thinks of the Bull in the dark of the bedroom that night a couple weeks ago, of the shadow of his horns against the window while Dorian slumped against his wardrobe. He thinks of the fingers curled beneath his against his thigh, warm and solid. 

“Bull,” he says, his hand dropping. “No harm done, all right? I… I just came to…” Excuses flit through his mind, but at last he simply says, “I came to see if you were all right.” 

Bull’s hands drop from his neck as he nods. “I am, now. I...I’m here now. You don’t have to worry, I promise.”

It hits Dorian harder than he knows how to brace for that the Bull thinks _he’s_ scared. Or that he should be. He almost stalks across the space between them until he remembers Bull waiting at the bed for him. 

“May I… come over there?” Dorian says.

Bull’s head snaps up. “What? Of course you can, I--”

Dorian’s in front of him before he can finish speaking, dropping to his knees. His hands rise to Bull’s cheeks, and now, so close to his face, Dorian can see Bull’s eye is wet. Dorian has to clench his jaw before he speaks. 

“I don’t know what happened,” Dorian says, fingers splaying around Bull’s ears, “But I do know that I am _not_ afraid of you.” 

Bull swallows. Dorian’s thumb brushes over Bull’s cheek.

“Can I touch you?” Bull says, quietly. 

Dorian’s fingers tighten and he hisses out a curse. He darts forward, pulling the Bull down into a fierce kiss. Bull melts against his lips, and two great hands wrap gently around Dorian’s wrists. 

When Dorian pulls back, breathless, he waits for Bull’s eye to open again. His fingers press into Bull’s skin when it does. 

“I mean it, Bull.” 

Bull stares at him for a moment, then slowly nods, squeezing Dorian’s wrists. “Okay.” 

Dorian gently pulls his hands away, glancing at Bull’s chest for a moment. Bull would know what to do, were he sitting in Dorian’s place. He’d know the right place to touch, the right words to say, the right way to soothe. Dorian feels as if he were an apprentice in the Circle again, puzzling over the right form for a spell, as he finally asks, “Do you… want to talk about it?” 

Bull sighs and shrugs. When he speaks, it sounds as if he’s trying to yank every word free of his throat. “Sometimes, I get these… they’re not dreams, obviously. It’s like reliving memories. Can’t see what’s really around me. It started happening on Seheron. Done it to the boys a few times, too, but not in a long time.”

 _You’re scared,_ Dorian thinks. So that’s what it meant. Tromping through the murky waters in the latter part of the Fade, they’d seen several rows of small stones. He’d read of cultures that chose to remember their dead that way, cultures untouched by Chantry traditions that put their dead in the ground rather than to the flame. Remembering that only made it the more unsettling to see his own name on one of the stones, and beneath it, carved sharp and strong, the word “temptation.” He turned away from it, but not before his eye landed on a similar stone bearing the Iron Bull’s name. He tried not to look, but his eyes fell on “madness.” He didn’t have time to wonder until now.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it feels magnificently insufficient, like bridging a canyon with a pebble. 

Bull gives him a small smile anyway. 

“I… ought to let you rest,” Dorian adds after a moment. Still, he can’t quite bring himself to stand. 

“If you want to,” Bull says. Dorian looks up at him.

“Do you want me to?” 

Bull looks down at him for a long moment. Then his hand finds Dorian’s arm in the dim. “Only if you’d rather go, but I… wouldn’t mind some company.” 

Dorian wonders if this might be the closest Bull will ever come to asking for something he wants. That Dorian hears that much in his words might be something, too. 

“Well, I hardly expect to sleep tonight anyway, I suppose I might endure your snoring,” Dorian says, and it surprises him how triumphant he feels when the Bull actually smiles.

“Generous of you,” he says.

“I’m a generous man,” Dorian says. He reaches for the buckle of Bull’s harness. 

He expects Bull to make some sort of innuendo, but instead he simply reaches for his belt while Dorian pulls the harness free. He sets it with the leg brace and boots already piled in the corner and slips his own boots off to join them. Then he looks back up at Bull, and hesitantly he raises his hand to the eyepatch. 

“May I…?” he slips his fingers beneath the leather band along Bull’s cheek. Bull nods. 

Dorian’s seen him without it, of course. It’s a gnarled, angry-looking scar running deep into the Bull’s skin, and Dorian had to wince in sympathy the first time Bull uncovered it. Now, as Dorian gently tugs it free of Bull’s horns, his thumb settles at the edge, and he wonders at the story of it. He wonders just how many scars the Bull really has, under leather and under flesh. But he doesn’t ask. Not tonight. 

The Bull reaches for his hand when Dorian lets it linger, and kisses the backs of his fingers. Then he lays down on the bedroll and tugs Dorian with him before Dorian has time to think too hard about it. Dorian’s head comes to rest against Bull’s shoulder, his arm curled over Bull’s chest. Bull’s hand is warm at his side, stroking back and forth, in time with the beat of his heart beneath Dorian’s fingertips. It’s strangely soothing, and in the silence that stretches between them, Dorian slowly slips into a dreamless sleep.


	5. All His Fault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian makes a very disheartening discovery: he can't sleep without Bull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And at long last, this thing is done. Thank you again to everyone who's been reading and commenting, I really appreciate it and I really hope you've enjoyed it. It was a fun and very self-indulgent thing to write, and I hope it's not too fluffy for everyone's tastes. I can't help myself sometimes. Thanks as always to [serenity-fails](http://serenity-fails.tumblr.com) for being a wonderful beta!

“This is ridiculous,” Dorian says. It’s the fourth time he’s said it (out loud) since tossing his pillow to the floor and kicking his legs free of the blankets. 

It’s all the Bull’s fault, every last little bit. Dorian blames Bull’s allergy to proper clothes, his frankly _preposterous_ muscles (north and south of the circus pants border), his absurd love for puns, and above all, his blighted smile. In years to come, when people ask Dorian how--

He’s grateful that little slip managed to stay in his head, because it grinds his feet to a halt partway up the tavern stairs. He’s staring, wide-eyed, at where his foot hovers over the next step. 

“I have in on guh...good auf- _or_ -i-ty that itsh one foot in fronna the other.” 

Dorian’s head whips around. He’s stopped level with a red-faced elf in a soldier’s uniform who is draped over his table and clinging to a tankard. Even in the wee hours before dawn, the Herald’s Rest is never entirely _at_ rest, but the fact that it’s not Sera or Varric or one of the Chargers catching him on his march up to Bull’s room is almost enough for Dorian to forgive the Maker all of His past slights. Almost.

This is, after all, entirely the Bull’s fault.

“My thanks, good man. I’ll endeavor to remember,” Dorian says with a small salute. The elf waves his free hand in what Dorian assumes to be an answering salute.

“Lookin’ out for ya, buddy,” he slurs, his head lolling. Dorian continues up the staircase.

The simple fact of the matter is that Dorian hasn’t slept since they returned to Skyhold. Ah, an amendment--he _did_ manage two lovely nightmares about demons made of eyes crawling through green shadows, and one single good night’s sleep he tripped into after Bull locked them both in his room for an entire evening the day after they returned. And that is the problem. Since their little jaunt through the Fade, the only time Dorian’s managed any sleep has been the nights he stumbled into Bull’s tent in the middle of the night. If it had only been the one night after they arrived back, Dorian could have excused it as Bull tiring him out--a good round of sex to clear the head. But every night he’s tried to sleep on his own, the bed felt too cold without Bull’s warmth under Dorian’s head, the space too empty without Bull to more than fill it, and--Maker help him--the silence too heavy without Bull’s rambling, or his laughter, or his thrice-damned snoring.

It’s the sleep deprivation. It must be, if thoughts like “years to come” and “comforting sound of snoring” are careening through Dorian’s head without so much as an _if-you-please._

This is unequivocally, undoubtedly, and absolutely the Iron Bull’s fault. 

Dorian plans to tell him just that as he knocks on Bull’s door (never mind what time it is). But when he enters to Bull’s call of “s’open,” the entire righteously angry litany on Dorian’s tongue dissolves until he’s only left with, “I… oh.”

Bull sits propped up against the headboard, one candle burning on the nightstand next to him. The fire is low in the hearth. Bull has one of the books Dorian left here propped up in his lap--Dorian recognizes the cover. Bull looks up as he enters and smiles, reaching for a strip of leather laying next to him on the bed. He pushes it carefully into the crease of the book, and Dorian finds that so absurdly attractive that he cannot speak for a moment. 

“Hey, big guy,” Bull says, laying the book on the nightstand. It’s not the first time Dorian has wondered how fingers that big could be that gentle, and it’s utterly unfair how much that thought makes Dorian’s chest flutter.

“You’re in luck.” says Bull. “I’m still awake.”

“Er...yes, so you are.” _Words_ , Dorian.

“Did you need something?” Bull says. Then his grin turns sly. “Or did you _want_ something?”

He reaches up to rest his hands behind his head, giving Dorian a better view of his bare chest. _Damn_ him. Bull continues, “Heads up, though, I haven’t been sleeping well, so...might save the acrobatic stuff for another time.”

Dorian tries to shake the _Maker-those-broad-arms_ fog from his mind. “I… that is, if you like.”

Bull frowns slightly. “Something on your mind, Dorian?”

Dorian swallows. “You… said you haven’t been sleeping?”

“Not well, not since Adamant. You know,” Bull shrugs. “Honestly… I only seem to get sleep when, uh, when I’m with you.”

Dorian stares at him a moment. Bull drops one hand back into his lap, then rubs his neck with the other. The gesture is so strangely sheepish that Dorian can’t help finding it endearing. _I’m ruined. I’m completely ruined._

“You too?”

It’s out before he can think to stop it, and then it’s Dorian’s turn to look sheepish. Bull sits up a little, and he looks so damn sweet with his brow bent in concern like that. 

This is all his fault.

Dorian finally moves toward the bed. He clears his throat, rallying himself. “Well, I suppose I might be persuaded to donate my bed-warming services.” 

Bull’s concern melts into a grin. “That so?” 

“Well, you certainly won’t find a more capable slayer of any demons that may come in the night,” says Dorian, unfastening his robe. “Except perhaps the Inquisitor, but I hear that bed is occupied.”

“Just my luck,” Bull says, watching Dorian’s sleeves slide down his arms.

“Yes, well, I do it with far more flair,” Dorian says, dropping the robe in a heap and toeing out of his boots.

Bull chuckles. “I don’t doubt that.” 

Dorian takes just a little more time than necessary with his sleeping pants, but Bull’s slow smile holds no complaint. His eyes rake over Dorian from foot to head. 

“Well,” he says, his voice rougher now, “as it happens, my bed is occupied too.”

“Is that right?”

“Well, it will be, shortly.”

Dorian folds his arms. “Sure of yourself.”

“I have it on good authority, after all,” says Bull, “that I have my own personal demon slayer. But I’ll warn you, your services may be required often. Nightly, even.”

“Hmm,” Dorian says, tapping his chin. “I don’t come cheap, you know.”

“But you will come,” says Bull, a wicked glint in his eye. “At least twice.”

“Promises, promises,” Dorian chuckles, finally crawling onto the bed. “That’s a lofty vow to make for every night.”

“I like a challenge,” Bull replies. He reaches for Dorian, tugging him close until Dorian sits astride his waist. Dorian runs a hand over a scar on Bull’s stomach.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

He sounds far less playful than he means to, and his hand stills. Bull’s eye softens a little, and Dorian has to swallow down the sudden terrible ache in his chest. Before he can say anything else, there’s an impossibly large hand at the back of his neck, pulling him down, and what can he do but follow? Bull’s hand strays to Dorian’s jaw, stroking along the line of it as their mouths meet. 

“I’ll do the same,” Bull breathes against his lips, then kisses them again, warm and firm.

“I suppose that’s fair payment,” Dorian says when they part, stroking along Bull’s chest. “If you can stop the snoring, I believe we’ll have a deal.”

“You first.”

Dorian scoffs. “I do not snore.” 

“Yes, you do.”

“I do not.”

“You really do.”

“Lies and slander.”

“Worse than I do.”

“You’ve never even heard yourself!” 

“It probably sounds like you.”

“Keep that up and I’m rescinding my offer.”

Dorian’s on his back before he thinks to fight Bull’s grip, his arms pinned above his head, Bull’s face level with his. 

“Just try,” Bull rumbles.

Maybe, Dorian thinks as Bull leans down to kiss him again, just maybe… he could get used to this. And that is entirely the Bull’s fault.


End file.
